travel is the sickly child of muscle potentials that caress

devilishly with grainy electricity.

[there lies an explanation,

paraplegic,

sworn to empathy]

it is for this definition i run up toned-down hills

[and walk down dreams of toned-up girls,

glorious in color 

and in sight, a double-blind]

with invitations to mix cotton candy into implanted memories,

selling it excessively with the consistency of taffy.

[my mind will notify you upon delivery

of your ideas, full

and mutilated by yours 

truly]

i cannot uphold somniloquy as fact, but i can swallow pride

[’s] feathers and regard myself

as an amalgamation of slanting lines, each bend

forming a dimension of its own, another realm,

pure in its reminder that you are not in control.

limits are silly stocking stuffers, manufactured

by the same snarky folk who drafted typing signals

on cell phones after departing the systems on their own.

they cannot see the surging current i kindle inside my bones

for i lack the slightest kindness to gift myself to them.

understand that when i ask you to look me in the teeth,

i yearn beyond wanting for you to nibble on each of my words

like a macaron,

reject amylase to melt me

as your merengue.

i wish beyond cherishing for you to devour my synapses

as i cannot sate you with afternoon snacks

of dappled poetry and twisted light.  as you need beyond living,

creature of shadow, consume me as you did the gods of old,

burst me into an implosion of dark, prismatic shine.

emma jean hermacinski is a sixteen-year-old new writer from zionsville, indiana. she attends school in wallingford, connecticut, where she can often be found by the campus's polluted creek, scribbling her poetry on a board she fished out of there. outside of poetry, emma enjoys crusading against capitalization, reading travelogues and spanish-language magical realism, and cuddling her cavapoo, lola. her first two poems are forthcoming in 3 Moon Magazine.